The Funny Stuff: HIMYM(2/25)

Well, that was disappointing.  Tonight, we get recycled plots, and a man-child masquerading as Marshall.
Let’s jump right in, shall we?
 
Lily and Marshall have a big art gallery opening, and Marshal is tres concerned about the lack of food, so he buys a gigantic bag of Skittles(“The last bag your Uncle Marshall would ever buy,” Ted intones ominously).  Marshall then proceeds to sit on several expensive pieces of art, and make terrible puns with artist’s names in the guise of ‘being outgoing.’  This plot was soooo boring.  I don’t even know what to say about it.  And then Marshall dropped his entire bag of Skittles on the floor(one Skittle at a time) during a moment of silence for the artist’s dead grandmother.  Instead of, you know, attempting to assuage the flow of Skittles, Marshall stood there as everyone in the gallery glowered at him for the entire minute it took.  It honestly feels like a character assassination, and for the writers to do that to the best character on the show is just wrong.
 
In other news, Ted and Jeanette are still together, and he put her on his RSVP to Robin and Barney’s wedding invite.  When they break up again(due to a spam e-mail from a girly-sounding spam-bot), Barney decides to help Ted find a new plus one by bringing out the Playbook.
 
“But that was destroyed eight episodes ago,” you may say!  
 
Of course, recycling plot from previous episodes(even if they are from the same season show) is now par for the course, so we get to see playbook antics again, yay.  Barney makes a command center at Ted’s house, and gives Ted an earbud so he can direct all of Ted’s words.  The plays are terrible, as usual, but when Robin comes back and finds the Playbook, Barney has to book it after her to get her back.  The second Barney takes his leave, Jeanette find Ted, and gives him a big...kiss on the lips, so he brings her back to his apartment, intent on getting back together.  It’s too bad, then, that Barney left the Playbook on Ted’s couch.  
 
Which Jeanette finds.  
 
And immediately begins trashing Ted’s apartment again.  Ted ends up on the sidewalk with the gang, and Jeanette threatening to blow up the Playbook with the fireworks she found.  Barney tells her to do it, and the whole thing goes up in flames, and Ted is ready to settle down for realsies, cause all the other times he’s settled down with a long term girlfriend were not him being an anti-commitmentaphobe.
 
Oh, and Barney got Robin back by telling her he’s a lying liar who lies, but he really REALLY loves her, so it’s cool.
 
This episode was kind of the antithesis of funny.  Even the laugh track wasn’t really into it at all.  Even if there are few laughs, a sitcom can be good if it has character development.  It’s too bad that all of the ‘character development’ this episode consisted either of regression(Marshall) or things that have happened a million times before in an ugly new wrapping(Ted, Robin and Barney).  Lily got the shaft, she had no development whatsoever, and she wasn’t even funny.  I just wish I wasn’t so invested in who the mother was, so I could drop this show like it really deserves to be dropped.
 
I got one funny line for you:
 
Ted, on one of Barney’s ‘one rules’: “Lebanese girls sprint to third base, and then stay there?”

The Funny Stuff: The Middle(2/6,2/13,2/20)

Oops, got a bit of backlog to catch up on…

The Smile(2/6)

Sue has an incredibly crabby teach, the kind who goes off on rants just cause he can, the kind who should really have retired years ago.  Anyway, he tells them to find something they are actually excited about, and make a science experiment around it.  Sue decides to test if smiling is contagious.  After a mid-experiment update in which her teacher is a complete and utter jerk, Sue is more determined than ever in her experiment.

In the end, she wasn’t able to prove her hypothesis, but the paper she wrote put a smile on her teacher’s face(and it actually was a decent paper), so all’s well that ends well, I guess?

Axl is getting bummed, and his parent worried, about not hearing anything from any of the colleges he applied to.  He can’t even get enthused about the prank he and his friends are planning.  Frankie accosts the mailman and everything in hopes of finding a possible lost letter.  But!  Axl chose to get the e-mail notice, and finds out in class that he got in!  After a couple of non-starters attempting to tell his parents at a noisy restaurant, the three of them group hug, and it’s cute.

Later, he and his friends are going to paint the water tower for their prank, but Darren forgot the paint.  As the three friends look over their town, Axl is glad he had his experiences in Orson.

Brick really wants an iPad, and is super obnoxious about it, seeing as Mike is heating up his coffee with a hair dryer.  After an entire month of saying no to getting an iPad, Mike and Frankie realize that Brick is a good kid, and there are tons of cheap ones on eBay and whatnot.  They get him one, and everyone is happy.

This was an ok episode.  Lots of character development, not a lot of laughs.  No funny lines, though

Valentine’s Day IV

Aww, this episode was sweet.

Axl decides he wants to grow his BossCo business, and so has a new plan:  they’ll break up with girlfriends for boyfriends who don’t want to.  They make tons of money, but the girls on the receiving end are not impressed.  The guys, though, start to realize that they are doing a truly terrible thing, but how do they make up for it?

Sue, in trying to avoid thinking about the fact that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, volunteers for clean-up duty at the dance.  That is, until Matt calls, and asks her to the dance!   She’s all excited, but as she’s getting ready, Matt calls, and leaves a message on the answering machine, which Axl and co overhears.  The boys nominate Darren to tell Sue the bad news, and Sue starts to have a breakdown.  But nice guy Darren says that he’ll go with her, and it is about the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  They dance, and talk, and eventually kiss over the garbage can.  Aww!!

Brick makes a really tacky card for Frankie, but she doesn’t save it, and Brick is incensed.  Frankie goes to the OCD neighbor next door, and borrows one of her meticulously organized kid projects, but there’s no way in hell it was made by Brick, as Mike is quick to point out.  Frankie goes to apologize to Brick, but he is having none of it.  That is, until Frankie gives him a cad with a nice note.  Which he promptly throws away.  As you do.

Oh, and Mike accidentally texted a Valentine’s note to an employee instead of Frankie, and his other employees are not impressed.  They all want Mike to call them special, so he finally breaks down and tells them it was for his wife, and not the employee.  All his staff try to therapize him, and it gets into Mike’s head to do something, so he gets her flowers, and tells her…you know.

I was literally awwing through much of this episode.  It was super cute, super fun, and even had some character development, which I’m sure will be completely forgotten next week, but it is a sitcom.

I did get a funny line, which I have meme’d for you:

(Axl just called Sue a cat lady in training)

 

Winners and Losers

And finally, we have the Oscars episode, mandated by ABC for cross-promotion.

Let’s start with…

Brick, who is very excited about his class Chicago trip.  Frankie is terrible apprehensive, seeing as Brick will be alone in Chicago with only the chaperones, and since she won’t be going, she tries to convince Brick not to go.  Brick calms her down and convinces her that he can be responsible in going to Chicago by himself.  But then, Frankie forgets to pick him up at the end, and Brick is pissed.

Axl and Sue have a rather intertwined story this week.  Sue passes Darren in the hall at school, and is her normal self about it, that is: completely awkward.  She wonders if anything is going on between them, and Darren is super cute about the whole thing, though Axl tries to throw a wrench in the budding relationship at every turn.  Beyond the part where he is just trying to get rid of Sue, and has no idea they might like each other.  Darren eventually sings a horrible song that shows Sue how he feels, and it is adorable.   He comes over later to watch the Oscars, and he and Sue flirt like mad men.  Axl slowly catches on to the fact that they like each other, and is not impressed, and tries to forbid them from dating, even going as far as to tell Frankie and Mike, but they are happy for the kids.  And then Sue and Darren are super cute, the end.

Man, I enjoyed the heck out of this episode.  Beyond the shoehorned in Oscar crap, the storytelling was great, and I really like Sue and Darren together, especially since the writers have been building it up for a few episodes already.

I got a funny line for you, too!

Darren, singing to Sue: “It was a moment of bliss, my magical trash can kiss!”

The Funny Stuff: HIMYM(2/18)

Ahh, that was a decent episode.  It was back to classical form: cross-cutting, multiple points of view of the same story, and natural character development.  It was actually pretty incredible, considering the nothing we’ve been getting for the last couple seasons.  Let’s jump right in.

Let’s jump right in to…

Ted’s version

So Ted has a phone message from the Captain(Zoey’s ex-husband), and he immediately starts freaking out, worried that the Captain wants to kill him.  Turns out, Ted, Robin, and Lily went to an art gallery opening, where Lily is worried about embarrassing herself in such a fancy place.  Suddenly, in walks the Captain and his ‘art advisor.’  He asks what Ted and co are doing there, and very rudely interrupts Ted’s explanation to finish Ted’s sentences at every turn.  Ted head-monologues about his rudeness, and then Robin asks what an art consultant does, and Lily explains, while pointing out a painting she likes.  Ted and the Captain make eyes at each other, with the Captain basically threatening to kill Ted, but then he invites them up to his apartment to see a new painting he got.

While in the apartment, Ted plays with an expensive ashtray before the Captain comes in, extolling his love to a mysterious photo.  Ted calls him on the Zoey thing, and the Captain pulls a harpoon gun(!) on him.  Ted calms him down, and then waits until everyone left to look at the picture on the Captain’s desk: turns out it’s someone Ted has been ‘hanging out’ with.  Just then, back in the present, the Captain calls back, and asks Ted for Robin’s number.

This leads us to…

Robin’s version

Robin reminds Ted that he was COMPLETELY toasted the entire time, and is mis-remembering several things, such as…

-Lily wasn’t embarrassed for herself, she was worried Ted was going to make a fool of himself at the hors d’oeuvres table

-The Captain wasn’t rude and threatening, he was helping Ted find words and jovial

-Ted didn’t so much head monologue as say everything he was thinking in an incredibly loud voice

-The Captain hardcore hitting on, and flirting with, Robin

-Ted nearly dropping the very expensive ashtray

-The harpoon gun, which was actually a remote control

We also learn that Robin turned the Captain down gently when he invited her to his room to ‘see’ his new painting.  Robin then calls the Captain, but it turns out he actually thought Robin was Lily, so Robin give him Lily’s number, leading to…

Lily’s version

Turns out, not only was Ted toasted, Robin was smashed on scotch shots.  Lily reminds her that she is ALSO mis-remembering things, like…

-Robin was hitting on the Captain, not the other way around

-The Art consultant being a complete and utter bitch

-Lily saving the ashtray from a clumsy Robin, who really had saved it from Ted

-The picture being of a yacht(with the girl Ted was haning out with as a small ad on the bottom of the yacht picture

-Robin throwing herself at the Captain again in his bedroom

We also learn a couple more things, namely that the Captain disrespected Lily’s enjoyment of art, and she performed some ‘Aldrin Justice’ to teach him a lesson: she took that fancy ashtray.  Lily won’t take it back, but she does break down because she’s despondent that the best days of her life are behind her.  Marshall tells her to follow her dreams, and bring that ashtray back, dammit. 

Lily does, the next day, and the Captain didn’t even realize it was gone.  What he did do, though, was buy that painting Lily liked, and surprise surprise, it appreciated in value immensely.  The Captain asks Lily to be his new art adviser, and she agrees.  Hooray!

This episode wasn’t terribly funny, though it was true to HIMYM form.  I enjoyed it, but didn’t laugh very often.

I did get one funny line for you, though:

Marshal, after Lily confesses to stealing the ashtray, and Barney asks if they are gonna do it: “No, we’re gonna fight…and then maybe do it.”

The Funny Stuff: Raising Hope(2/19)

Ahhh, this episode was great!!  Tons of laughs, and lots of puns, plus class difference between the Chances and Sabrina without feeling shoehorned.  Lets jump right in.

It’s Arbor Day, and the Chances are getting ready to celebrate it with Hope for the first time.  Sabrina is very excited to learn they celebrate Arbor Day, and Virginia delves into all the holidays they celebrate:

-Presidents Day, which included a shower of chocolate coins, special food, and their favorite show, Beverly Hills 90210

-Groundhogs Day, where they dug holes and filled them with treats, had special food, and watched their favorite show, Beverly Hills 90210

-And finally, Arbor Day, where they got baby trees and hung treats all over them, and Papa Woody came to visit, finishing with special food and Beverly Hills 90210

Sabrina is fully in for the fun tradition, until she finds out that the Chances dug up the trees from a park for the Arbor Day tradition, and then burned them on Chinese New Year, when they were good and dry.  She is NOT impressed with this, seeing as she was the one who planted those trees for Arbor Day in the first place.  Sabrina doesn’t want Hope celebrating this tradition, and forbids Jimmy from letting her.

Sabrina shows Hope her meaning of Arbor Day, including tree planting, leaf rubbing, and edutanment video watching.  That night, thought…

Sabrina was visited by the ghost of Arbor Day!  AKA Luke Perry, and it is awesome.

They visit the past, and he shows Sabrina that Virginia and Burt used the lesser holiday traditions to make up for the fact that they couldn’t give Jimmy all the awesome stuff for Christmas, but could give him the best Presidents/Arbor/Groundhog Day ever.  Sabrina is chastised, and the move on to…

The present has a bummed out Burt and Virginia, missing a kid to celebrate Arbor Day with.  Jimmy is a sad sack too, reading an Arbor Day story to Hope, but reminding her it’s only a story, and that she won’t really wake up to things growing on trees.  Sabrina is chastised again, and they move on to…

The future, where Hope is a teenager, and has all sorts of toys.  But Jimmy is bald and stressed, Sabrina is wrinkled and stressed, and Hope just wants to spend time with her overworked parents, who don’t have time to spend time with her.  *tear*  Sabrina is dually chastised, and we head out of dream land.

Sabrina doesn’t want to end up like that, so she races to the park to pull up saplings for Hope to celebrate Arbor Day, and totally gets arrested.  Whoops.  It’s okay, though, cause Jimmy got a tree for Hope, but instead of letting it dry out, they planted it like Sabrina wanted.  Aww.

This episode literally had me rolling practically the entire time.  So. Many. Puns.  I almost couldn’t handle it.  I also liked the combined traditions story, even if it is bordering on TV Trope status.  And Hope?  Is freaking adorable.  “TWEE!”

I got several funny lines for you, too:

Virginia, when Maw Maw pulled out a Votes for Women banner: “That’s for Susan Banthony’s birthday!”

Jimmy, explaining Arbor Day’s mascot: “Papa Woody—the famous spirit of the forest who pitches his tent deep in the bush!”

Virginia, naming President’s Day’s special food: “LBJ sandwiches.”

Virgina, naming Groundhog Day’s special food: “6 more weeks of wieners.”

Burt as Papa Woody, after Jimmy makes a wish: “and I’m sure he wishes you were good at throwing footballs, or chewing with your mouth closed!”

Luke Perry as Papa Woody:

The Funny Stuff: Community(2/14&21)

Paranormal Parentage

It’s Valloween!  Or Halloween on Valentine’s Day, for those out of the loop.  Since Community was supposed to start airing in October, and most of the episodes were filmed before they knew that, so yay, warped timelines!

Anyway, almost everyone is in the study room, meeting to get to Vicki’s party when Troy, dressed as Hobbes to Abed’s Calvin, gets a call from Pierce, who has managed to lock himself in his panic room.

Jeff(a wrestler to Annie’s ring girl(except how she thought he meant creepy Ring girl, whoops)) does NOT want to go, but he is overruled by the group, so they make their way to Pierce’s creepy mansion.

When they get there, Pierce sends them on a hunt for a book that holds the code to open the panic room, leading to a quick split.

Jeff and Britta head to the creepy bedroom where Britta tries to get Jeff to admit he has daddy issues. Abed and Annie head in a different direction,  and Abed finds a secret TV room.  He spends the rest of the episode spying on the rest of the group, while Annie joins Troy and Shirley(Princess Leia to her family’s Star Wars universe) after they found Pierce’s secret sex room, complete with indoor swings and collar(which are not for secret dogs, silly Troy).

After a couple of very creepy happenings, including a picture that continuously changes sizes and hands and a face trying to come out of the wall, all the group comes together to yell at Pierce to turn off the haunted house, but he’s laying unconscious on the floor.  Everyone starts freaking out, but then Pierce jumps out, laughing at them for falling for his trick, upset he wasn’t invited to Vicki’s party.  No one is surprised, but Abed pops out, asking about the secret shadow figure he spotted on the surveillance tape, dun Dun DUUN!

Pierce has no idea who that is, and starts to FREAK OUT.  Just then, the door opens, and it’s Pierce’s brother!  Turns out he’s been living in the mansion for six secret weeks.  Pierce asks him to stay, and it’s all awww.

This was an odd episode.  There were laughs, but the high concept part really didn’t go far enough.  It felt very tentative, and the dialogue didn’t feel like things the group actually say, for the most part.  At best, it felt like someone got the basic gist of how a Community episode should be structured, the details were kind of fail.

I did get a couple of funny lines for you:

Troy, when Pierce asks the group to find his code book: “No sweat, Bobba Fett”

Annie, when Troy tells her about Pierce’s secret room: “Indoor swing?  That’s ridiculous, someone’s gonna break a lamp!”

Troy, when the group discovered Pierce on the floor: “Please don’t die slightly before your time!”

Conventions of Space and Time

And now it’s time for and Inspector Spacetime convention!

It’s the InpectiCon, and Troy and Abed are super excited, obviously.  After an extended(pointless) scene of Britta in her undies, everyone(minus Pierce and Shirley) head on a road trip to the convention(Jeff and Annie, though are using the trip to go skiing instead).

Abed has a new friend, from Nigeria, natch, and Troy is feeling left out.  The new guy and Abed are like, mind-melding or something, so Britta therapizes Troy to help him understand what it going on with Abed and the new guy, before finally settling into the girlfriend role and being supportive of her boyfriend.  Abed, on the other hand, may have found his match in Toby, who is basically just like him.  When Abed realizes that he needs a more emotional constable to his incredibly logical inspector, Toby freaks out, and locks him in a phone booth.  But Troy finds him, and saves Abed by threatening to beat up Toby, and it’s really cute.

Annie and Jeff’s ski trip got axed due to avalanche, so they stay at the convention, too, where it turns out Jeff looks just the main villain of Inspector Spacetime.  Annie heads to the hotel room, where she pretends that she is married to Jeff when she calls room service.  Except, whoops, Jeff is in the bar, flirting with a fan of Inspector Spacetime who REALLY enjoys Thoraxis.  The hotel staff, though, are not impressed with Jeff’s ‘philandering,’ and tell Annie, who has to yell at Jeff to save face.  They end up talking it out, and Jeff ends with the super sweet ‘if we were married, you wouldn’t find me flirting with another woman in a hotel bar.’  Aww. 

Oh, and Shirley and Pierce (mostly Pierce) manage to completely destroy the American version of Inspector Spacetime. Of course.

Gah!  I love this show, but there is definitely something missing.  I don’t like that these stories aren’t centered around the school, and I miss the part where everything happened for a reason, even if it wasn’t an immediate punchline.  As several discussions I’ve read have noted, Britta walking through the fire escape in her underwear was a huge missed opportunity for social commentary, either on the objectification of women as ‘booth babes’ at the convention, or in some other way that I’m not smart enough to see.  Instead, it was played as a ‘oooo, look at Gillian Jacobs in her undies,’ which eww.

I did get one funny line for you:

Toby, after Troy threatens him: “Oh my god, he can make a fist.  That would hurt harder than a slap…He’s in that one!”

The Funny Stuff: Happy Endings(1/30)

So these are a couple of weeks old, but I thought I’d get em out to you finally!

First, we have…

The Marry Prankster

Apparently, Max is a major prankster, and the gang decides to get him back by making him think he’d won the lottery.  Unfortunately, Max was a bit down due to his limo having a hole in the floor ala the Flintstones, and so did not take the pranking well.  Max vowed revenge on everyone, starting with…

Brad and Jane.  Brad got stripper glitter in his lotions and creams, which Jane had fun with to full effect(imagine Brad in a slutty cowboy outfit, and you get the idea).  Later, Jane got an exploding waffle  to the face, leaving the two to move into the b-plot.  Brad is ready for a job, and failed miserably looking in his field of expertise.  He did eventually find a job at a fun center, but Jane is not impressed, and wants him to quit.  But Brad really enjoys it, when Jane sees once she visits the center one day.  She and Brad are happy until the accidentally fall in the ball pit, and are asked to use the diaper fork to clean it out.  Brad will be looking for a new job ASAP, in case you were worried.

ANYway, next we have Alex, who is filled with anticipation for her prank, and cannot handle it, and so cuts half her hair off in hopes of staving off an actual prank, but Max isn’t swayed.  That is, until Alex asks to work with him to prank Dave, which Max agrees to.

Penny’s prank involved getting slimed when she used the land line, but Pete threw a wrench in the works when he set up to ask Penny to marry him, with roses and a little ring alter and everything.  Penny, thinking the setup was from Max, threw the ring out, but when Max informed her it was real, they went dumpster diving to find the ring.  It was then Penny realize Pete was missing.  Turned out Max superglued him to the toilet.  Whoops.  Anyway, he finally gets loose, and asks Penny to marry him, aww.

Lastly, we have Dave.  He thwarted a couple of pranks, including a booby trapped muffin basket and a booby trapped couch, which Dave was enticed to sit on by Alex, but she tripped it instead, getting flung into the air.  Finally, Dave decided to use hotplates and an ignition trip to fill Max’s limo with popcorn.  Too bad the whole thing exploded after Max got in.  Dave freak out, as you will.  That is until Max walked up behind the group, who were all there.  Dave gave him a massive hug as Max explained how he used the Flintstones hole and a tip from Alex to pull this one off.

Later, at the bar, the group was talking about how the whole thing got started, as Alex took her leave.  After she was out of earshot, Dave says Max started the whole thing with the ‘Subs for Guns’ prank, but Max denies responsibility.  The waitress brings over a fax with a drawing of Alex and ‘Gotcha’ on the bottom, but the whole group doesn’t think Alex could have done it, since she got the worst of Max’s pranking.  Cut to…

Alex walking down the street, her limp going away, and extensions being pulled out to reveal not cut hair.  Dun dun DUN!

This was a fun episode, all Inception-y and whatnot.  There were a lot of laughs(who doesn’t love toilet humor, right?)  The situation was a bit out there, but it really seemed believable for the characters.

I did get a couple of funny lines for you, too:

Max, when Penny walks in in a wedding dress: “Oh my God, are you having a breakdown?  Let me grab my camera!”

Alex, regarding her prank involvement: “I’m not as dumb as I am!”

Our Best Friend’s Wedding

Ok, so Penny and Pete are all engaged now, and the gang is having an engagement party, except oops, she didn’t invite Pete.  Penny vows to make all decisions together, but uh-oh, Pete wants to elope, which Penny REALLY does not want. 

Later, the group decides to bring Pete to a wedding expo to show him why he wants to have a big wedding, and we split into pairs.

Max and Brad fake gay to get free stuff, but when Max sees a cute guy, they ‘break up,’ much to the chagrin of the other gay guys around.  The other guys threaten to beat up Brad until he agrees to get back together with Max.  They are sufficiently awkward about it, and it is hilarious.

Dave and Alex look at planning their second wedding, Dave promising not to be the bridezilla he was the last time, and Alex pushes crazy ideas to the limit, until she breaks Dave. It was over beige napkins, so that was weird.  They get in a fight, and Dave storms out.  He eventually calms down, andmakes it up to Alex by bringing her a baby chick for the petting zoo she wanted at their first wedding.  Aww.

Penny, Jane, and Pete are going around with Penny and Jane trying to prove to Pete he wants a wedding, highlighted by the Aha-making video machine, which was fantastic.  Pete still doesn’t want a wedding, so Peny goes to pout under a table.  Dave talks her down, reminding her that it is important both people involved are happy, or one gets left at the altar.  Penny brings this new perspective to Pete, telling him she is willing to elope, and Pete is so touched he agrees to a big wedding.  Aww.

Oh, and Jane gets in a fight with a professional wedding planner, and gets kicked out of the expo.

This episode was funny enough, but it was paced really weird.  It almost felt like two different episodes, and I think it probably could have easily been that way as well.

I did get a few funny lines:

Penny, when she realized Pete wasn’t at the party: “Oh crapdammit, I forgot to invite Pete!”

Penny, when Alex is asleep after Pete finally arrives: “Wake up you tiny whore!”

Alex and Jane, when Jane assigns couples for the wedding expo: “Why do I have to be couples with Dave?”  “Because you are couples with Dave?”

Pete, after being tricked to the expo: “Looks like this reggae fest is a wedding expo!”

Penny, in trying to convince Pete he may like big weddings: “I didn’t like Korean spas until I learned the phrase “I don’t want to bleed today” in Korean!”

The Funny Stuff: How I Met Your Mother(2/11)

So this was a rather not funny episode.  The a-plot was pointless and the b-plot was just odd, so lets jump right in, shall we?

So Ted is still dating Jeanette, and after a stupid contrivance with Marshall and Barney, has to deal with her being barricaded in his bedroom.  Ted had decided to break up with her, and she didn’t take it well.  After several attempts at getting her out of the room, including calling the police(but oops, she’s a cop!), and Ted dressing up as Boba Fett to armor himself against her attacks.  But all was for naught, when Ted decided to continue dating Jeanette, if only to get the crazy out of his system. 

This whole plot doesn’t even make any sense.  So she was crazy before she started dating Ted(see: threatening to kill a ref at a hockey game, breaking a TV with a thrown beer bottle, staling Ted for nearly a year), but somehow she passed the psych exam to become a cop?  Ted is supposedly some sort of playboy who likes hooking up with random people, but he really REALLY isn’t(see every girl he ever dated, all ending in ‘will you marry me?’).  Hopefully, this couple doesn’t last too long, cause I kind of dislike Jeanette already.

In our B-plot, Lily and Robin are taking Marvin out shopping or some such thing, when Lily realizes that Marvin’s nook is missing, probably lost the bus somewhere.  Lily runs off to grab it, leaving Robin in charge of Marvin.  Funny thing, though: Robin had never held Marvin in his 8 months of living.  When he starts fussing, a stranger walks up, and Robin has that person take care of him.  As it turns out, that person was Mike Tyson, but Robin didn’t spill the beans on that little detail until 17 years later, after slowly revealing more and more of the story as years went on.

The concept was amusing, but execution was a bit lacking.  Neither Lily or Robin looked aged at all in any of the flash forwards, and there were too many of them for the story to even be feasible in the amount of time Robin had to do all this.

All in all, a rather disappointing episode.  I really hope we start moving forward a bit more, to get people at least slightly closer to where they are supposed to be by the time this story is apparently being told.  But now we get a season 9, so it may be even longer before we even find anything out.  Here’s hoping for a courtship season, meaning Ted meets the mother at the end of this season.

I did get one funny line for you, though:

Barney on Jeanette: “Cray Cray gotta go bye bye before you get stab stabbed”

The Funny Stuff: Raising Hope(1/29 &2/5)

So Ben and Kate is cancelled, so Raising Hope gets two hour episodes, yay!  Let’s start with…

Modern Wedding

Jimmy and Sabrina are finally getting married!  And since her family is psycho, Sabrina’s mother has sent the camera crew from Modern Family to tape the whole thing so she doesn’t have to attend.  Of course.  So we get documentation of the lead up to the wedding, complete with Talking Heads and everything.  The parody of Modern Family was spot on, and actually funny to boot, something MF can’t claim at all.

SO, the main plot of the episode is the wedding, of course, but it really isn’t focused on Jimmy and Sabrina at all.

Burt and Virginia are focused on getting them a great gift, but seeing as they have no money, they decide to ‘help’ instead.  They print the invitations, but put the wrong address.  They go to fix a license snafu, and find out that Lucy is still alive.  WHAT!!  Lucy’s dad has kept her squirreled away in a locked bedroom, but when she escapes to ruin the wedding, Burt and Lucy’s dad try to catch her, and are eventually successful, and completely undetected by anyone in the wedding party.  That is, until they watch the playback from the MF camera crew.  Ruh-ro.

Oh, and they have the reception before the wedding, due to Virginia having to convince the priest to officiate, since Maw Maw ruined his life 50 years prior.  And then Virginia walks Sabrina down the aisle, and the ceremony is cute, and awww.

This was such a fun episode.  The parody was great, the comedy was continuous, and the character development was fun.

I got a few funny lines for you as well:

Middle-eastern shop owner, regarding the feds continuously opening his mail:“How many American flags must I hang for you people to leave me alone!”

Virginia and Burt, regarding Lucy dying: “Is there a word that combine tragic and happiness?”  “Schadenfreude.” “Now you’re just making words up.”

Lucy’s dad, on where he got the shock collar: “I got it from a patient of mine who’s a masochist…had to threaten to not kick his ass to get it.”

Yo Zappa Do, Parts 1&2

In this episode, Hope’s favorite show stars the creepy kid from last season that is Barney’s ex-wife’s son, and the entire family decides to head to California to see a taping, much to the chagrin of Jimmy and Sabrina.  And why, you may ask?  Cause this trip was to be their honeymoon, of course!

Before they head out, though, Ricardo, Sabrina’s mother’s ex(the baseball player) is out on the streets after completely letting himself go.  Burt and Virginia have him help them set up a scrapbooking room, and he asks to stay at their house.  Unfortunately, he stinks it up with ethnic cooking, and they take him with on the honeymoon trip, though they do manage to lose him on a street that has a name vaguely similar to a famous Hollywood street.

Anyway, they are at the taping, and it is fully meta up in here.  After the baby star of the show refuses to blow raspberries, Hope fills in for her, and they break for the two-parter before the rest of the Yo Zappa Do was finished, and Burt was very worried.  And it was fan-freaking-tastic.  The parody and self-referential humor on this show is starting to rival lesser Community episodes, and it is great.

The next episode, we’re back in the studio, and the live audience is providing a laugh track for the Chance’s dialogue and more meta-ness ensues.    Oh, and Jimmy gets the chance to be an extra on the kid’s show.   Virginia decides to whore out Hope while she has the chance(with clothes!  Get your mind out of the gutter), since child stars only shine for a short time: “They could star in a Spielberg movie and still end up the nutty mom on some sitcom!” Unfortunately for Hope, she upstages Trevor, and he was not impressed, and got them kicked off the show, sending the family back to Natesville.

But before that happens, Burt is out on the studio lot, and takes care of an unruly plant. The studio head is duly impressed, and asks for a proposal to landscape the courtyard by the parking structure.   He does a fantastic job, but when heads from the networks come by and give criticisms that are terrible, Burt flips out, and runs away, giving pretty good commentary on producer intervention in the process.

Oh, and Maw Maw wants to throw her husband’s ashes in the face of the woman he cheated on her with, but she is dead.  Whoops.  So she sleeps with her husband instead.  Odd storyline.

And then everyone heads back in Natesville, living their lives at normal.

This was such a fantastic two-parter, I was rolling the entire time.  The meta and humor were glorious, all while keeping the characters true to themselves and generally being awesome.

 

I got several funny lines for you too:

Burt, when the family walks in on Jimmy and Sabrina’s role-play: “Jimmy, my instructions were kiss, get undressed and then do it, NOT do it dressed like Kiss!”

The studio head, on something Burt said: “That’s funny!  Not strong enough to end a scene on…but funny!”

Virginia, when Sabrina tells her what she’s dressing Hope up as: “Oh, you had to play the race car!”

Burt, when he tells off the network heads:*Kick* “That’s for cancelling My Name is Earl!”

Sex, Clowns, and Videotape

After the gloriousness that was the previous half hour, this was a bit of a letdown, but still pretty good.

In the main story of this episode, Burt and Virginia are trying to locate a clown toy they used to scare Jimmy.  They need it since they hid their sex tape inside it, but Maw Maw donated it to a rummage sale.   When they go to the storage unit place, they see it in another unit that is up for auction, and so they go to bid on it.  Of course, Frank got wind of the tape, and is fighting over the unit, but they eventually get it, only to find out that the sex tape isn’t inside.  When they go to sell all the crap they got from the storage unit, they decide to give the people back their pictures, at least.  When they get to the house, turns out the people were creepers who watched their sex tape.  And apparently, it completely saved their marriage.  Creepy.   They even used it as a teaching tool for their kids, after a massive edit.  In the end, they sell it to the couple for $800 to get Virginia’s pig figurines back(don’t ask).

And in our b-plot, Jimmy sleepwalks, and Sabrina tries to snap him out of it.  First with a sleep apnea machine, and then with exercising.  When none of those work, they give up for the day, but not before collecting a bunch of stuff from his parent’s house.  That night, Jimmy sleepwalks, but he just puts a bunch of his stuff up in their house.  Turns out he was just trying to get home.  He and Sabrina decided to put some of his stuff up, and it’s super cute.

This was a fun episode, but the jokes weren’t quite as strong as in Yo Zappa Do.

I did get a couple of lines, though:

Virginia, regarding Burt’s inability to kill a fly: “Flies carry deadly diseases, why do you think there’s a no-fly zone at the white house?”

Sabrina, as she and Jimmy walk by his parent’s house: “Either your parents are having a yard sale, or your house finally threw up.”